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This week I have two awesome new recipes for you, inspired by a great charity. I am partnering with friends to support Alex’s Lemonade Stand in San Diego, which is one of the biggest fundraisers in California and one of the top ten Alex’s Lemonade Stands in the country. Since its inception, Alex’s Lemonade Stand has raised over $80 million worldwide for childhood cancer, and has funded more than 450 research projects at 94 institutions. They also help families struggling with childhood cancer through a Travel Fund and an annual Educational Symposium.

If you can’t attend, please click here to donate. Let’s help the Miller Tribe reach their goal of $15,000 this year, which would be a total of $100,000 for the nine years they’ve been running.

I’m helping out by participating in the San Diego Food Bloggers Lemonade Online Challenge, sponsored by Melissa’s Produce. In addition to my two recipes (below), more than a dozen San Diego Food Bloggers will be cooking with lemons in support of Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Please check out their lemony recipes online between July 21-28, and make a donation to the Stand through links on their blogs, linked at the end of this post.

I accepted the lemon challenge and came up with a savory and a sweet recipe using the delicious fruit from Melissa’s Produce. I hope you enjoy these. I sure did.

Savory Lemon Challenge:

Epic Lemony Wings

For the savory part of the challenge, I opted for the best recipe I have made all summer, Epic Wings. Seasoned. Smoked. Fried. Tossed in sauce. I’ve made them a number of times so far this summer and you can’t beat them for crowd-pleasing. They’re the best. And as usual, one of my favorite things about this recipe is its extreme versatility.

I decided since I was doing a lemon challenge, the sauce for these Epic babies would be a delicious Meyer lemon sauce. I based mine off of this one, but used more lemon juice and lemon zest, and had a different preparation process.

To really switch up the flavors, I decided to try some different wood chips than I usually use; the Jack Daniel’s brand wood chips, made from the oak barrels they use to age the whiskey. Just remember: Oak chips need to pre-soak a little longer than most.

Feel free to use any type of wood chips because all of them taste good, and frankly, I don’t think it’s possible to screw up these wings.

Ingredients for the chicken wings:

4-5 lbs chicken wings

2-3 tablespoons of salt-free house seasoning

1 cup bacon grease or vegetable oil

wood chips for smoking (your choice)

Ingredients for the Lemon Sauce:

1 cup fresh-squeezed Meyer lemon juice

1/2 cup water

2 tsp. corn starch

2 tbsp. sugar

zest from 1 lemon

First, season the wings. Make sure the seasoning you use is salt-free (or at the very least low-salt) because too much salt will dry out the meat during smoking. Prepare your smoker according to manufacturer specifications with soaked wood chips of your choice, and let the chicken wings smoke for at least one hour.

While the wings are smoking, prepare your sauce. You should do this regardless of which sauce you decide to use, but for the lemon sauce, I mix the water and sugar in a pot and bring it up to a simmer. Separately, mix the lemon juice and corn starch, while the liquid is still cold, and add it to the pot, stirring constantly. Add the lemon zest and set aside.

Fry the wings in bacon grease or oil. I don’t really need to tell you why bacon grease is the optimal setting for this, or why you can substitute oil if you so desire. I don’t have a deep fryer so I used bacon grease in a cast-iron skillet, but again, the idea is to deep-fry the wings you just smoked, so it really doesn’t matter how it gets done. If you have a deep fryer, use it. If you have duck fat or something somehow tastier than bacon grease or duck fat, then by all means, fry it in that. They’re already fully cooked in the smoker, and the flash fry will seal in the meat juices and the flavors of your seasoning and smoking, and add a nice crispy edge to your wings so that the last step doesn’t make them soggy.

The last step: Toss the wings in the sauce, and make sure you get them nicely coated. Serve immediately. Sit and bask in the compliments you receive.

Sweet Lemon Challenge:

Key Lime and Lemon Swirled Curd

For the sweet lemon recipe, I wanted to make a nice lemon curd like this one I used from Linda Ziedrich’s book called “Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves.” It’s simple and delicious, and a beginner like myself can make it. My box of produce from Melissa’s Produce had two kinds of lemons as well as Key Limes, so I opted to make a curd from Key Limes, a curd from lemons, and then swirl them together for a fun dessert topping.

Yum!

First of all, I would recommend, especially if you are cooking with Key Limes, that you get yourself an assistant. Preferably one with strong hands. Or when you plan your cooking, add at least a half-hour for juicing. For the curd recipe, you need 2/3 cup of lemon juice (or lime juice if you’re making lime curd), and for those tiny Key Limes, you’ll need about a dozen to get 2/3 of a cup.

I added a bit of green food coloring to the Key Lime-flavored curd, because with the egg yolks and eggs, the finished product looked too yellow. In the end, the lemon curd and the lime curd together was lovely on top of a fluffy angel food cake.

Oooh, it smells like fall around here. The weather took a sharp turn towards the weird in good old San Diego after Labor Day weekend, and the smell of the slightly rainy and humid feel makes me think of forests in the Pacific Northwest that are brimming with fragrant woods. Indigenous people have been cooking their meals on woods like cedar for generations. I received an awesome gift of some fresh Alaskan salmon, so I figured this was the perfect time to try some planking on my M7P outdoor cooking system.

I did a little research beforehand, looking at the tips from the manufacturer (I used “TrueFire” planks but there are a few different places to get cedar specifically prepared for grilling and cooking) and asking some fellow foodies in the know. The main recommendations I got were to soak, soak, soak the planks. The ones I bought suggested 20 minutes to 4 hours of soaking, but pretty much everyone else I talked to suggested more like 6 hours and even overnight. Since this blog is about my experiments, I determined that I would … well, experiment … and discover which recipes and methods work best.

Experiment No. 1:

Herbed Alaskan Salmon with fresh vegetables

I made this recipe on a cedar plank that had been soaking in water for about 4-5 hours, and I cooked it over charcoal. Obviously you can adapt this recipe and soak the plank in other liquid, like fruit juice or wine (but stay clear of spirits because they will make your plank of cedar into a plank of fire).

2 fillets Alaskan salmon

1 lemon

Salt and pepper

Fresh herbs (I used rosemary and thyme)

Carefully place the salmon on the planks (you may need one plank per fillet if the planks are small or the fish is big) and season the salmon with the salt, pepper, and herbs, and sprinkle fresh juice from the lemon on top. Add fresh vegetables (I used asparagus, but stick to something like broccoli that would steam quickly and easily) and cover with foil. Carefully place the plank on a preheated grill and cook for about 25-30 minutes.

The vegetables covering the salmon also help to keep the heat inside.

What I Learned from Experiment No. 1:

Cedar is weak. Within 10 minutes at not-very-high heat, the plank has started to buckle in on itself and the juices are starting to run off. The solution: put the plank on a broiler pan or some other equally sturdy and hole-y flat surface.

Temperature control is key. Keep the fire at about 200 degrees and keep the lid on as much as possible while cooking. The wet cedar is also steaming the salmon and vegetables, and it helps to keep the salmon protected by a pile of asparagus or other veggie. It’s also recommended that you keep a squirt bottle handy in case of a flare-up.

A broiler pan is perfect to keep the cedar plank from buckling.

Experiment No. 2:

Baked Alaskan Salmon with Grapefruit/ Vanilla Quick Marmalade

I got some lovely fresh vanilla beans and thought the additional sweetness and citrus flavor would be great on the salmon. This version is also baked in the oven on top of a plank soaked in orange juice, but it can be cooked on a grill also if you like.

1 whole grapefruit (if not organic, scrub the outside very well)

1/2 fresh vanilla bean, scraped

1 cup sugar

2 fillets Alaskan salmon

salt and pepper

Fresh vegetables (I used carrot sticks and bok choy this time)

To make the marmalade, slice the grapefruit very thinly, peel and all, into a nonreactive pot (to make the marmalade less bitter, omit the peel but keep the pith). Add vanilla and sugar, boil on high for about 10 minutes and then reduce to a simmer for about 30 minutes or until the mixture has gelled (watch carefully, because when it’s done, you have about 10 seconds to remove it from the heat before it burns). While still warm, spoon on top of salmon fillets that are already on soaked cedar planks.

I kept the cedar as wet as possible (literally in an inch of orange juice in the baking dish) and also covered the salmon with sturdy vegetables to keep the moisture and heat inside while baking.

What I Learned from Experiment No. 2:

Cedar takes the flavor you give it. Soaking the plank in orange juice adds a ton of fresh and delicious flavor to the delicate salmon.

Cedar is delicious. There is no need to pile on overpowering flavors to compete with the delicate flavor of the salmon. Although the grapefruit is a little overpowering in this recipe, salmon and most other fish work very well with citrus and this is no exception.

Baking the cedar plank while it’s immersed in liquid means you don’t need to be constantly vigilant about the cedar possibly flaring up, so it’s more convenient in that sense. However the cedar flavor is definitely more pronounced when the plank is grilled.

Of course, there’s no reason your cedar-plank-cooking experience must be limited to vegetables and delicate fish. For my next attempt, I went full turophile.

Experiment No. 3:

Planked Brie

I love cheese like Paula Deen loves butter. I soaked this cedar plank in white wine to enhance the awesome.

Bottle of white wine (I used a simple Turning Point Chardonnay, but use whatever you like)

Wheel of Brie cheese

For serving: a jar of your favorite spicy jelly and some crusty bread or crackers (I used my favorite roasted cherry/pepper jam. Thank goodness I had an extra jar! It’s delicious and smoky and is an excellent addition to the creamy brie).

Soak the plank in the white wine for at least 4 hours (to really get the wine flavor into that plank, soak it for 6 or more). Carefully slice the top off of the brie package and place on the plank, then carefully place on a grill. Cover and let cook over the hot coals for about 20 minutes, until the cheese is gooey and bubbly. For serving, add the spicy jelly on top and serve with sliced apples and pears and crackers or bread.

Try it with a spicy and fruity jam or preserve.

What I Learned from Experiment No. 3:

Cheese is awesome. Well … I may have known that before.

White wine doesn’t add as much flavor as I thought it would. The wine adds a delicate scent and flavor but the cedar is pretty delicate and fragrant as well. One day I plan to try planking some chicken and cheese with a good hoppy beer.

If you are cooking on coals, cook as the coals are starting to cool off. If you have a propane or very hot grill that has been cooking all day and is still very hot, make sure you keep an eye on the brie because you have about enough time as it takes to slice an apple or two and open a pack of crackers before the cheese overflows all over the plank. If the grill is cooling off when you place the brie on it, you have a beer or two before it’s soft enough to serve. But still keep an eye on it.

It also helps to "tent" some foil over the plank, like so.

Brie is like jam in that when it’s done, you have about 45 seconds between “done” and “burnt beyond recognition and unusable as food.” Watch it carefully or you’ll waste the cheese and the cedar plank.

Altogether, I am very happy with the results of my cooking on cedar planks. It adds a delicate and smooth yet very distinct flavor to several different dishes. Obviously things like delicate salmon or gooey brie is best for a medium like cedar, but I look forward to planking chicken, ribs and even desserts. Stay tuned.

Once again I am blown away by the ease with which this recipe can be made. I really believe that television cooks and celebrity chefs — for the most part — try to psyche the general public into believing something is harder to make than it really is. The best example of this is a conversation I had with my brother-in-law when he asked me if I would be preparing a brine for a turkey I was making. Immediately, I said no, brining is too complicated, it’s too many ingredients, it’s too much work. It was, in fact, none of those things, as I gathered from looking at his face when he raised his eyebrows and said “Yeah? Ya don’t know how to boil water?”

Well, touche, sir.

Think curd is too hard? Hollandaise is for the gourmet chefs? Think again. If I can do it, anyone can.

Got lemon juice? Stir 2/3 of a cup of it with 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks. (Learn how to separate the white from the yolk here. It’s easier than it looks, and this guy makes it look pretty easy. And you know what? If there’s a teensy bit more white than yolk, the world won’t even end.)

Now, in a double boiler (read: a bowl over a pot of boiling water), melt 6 tablespoons of butter. Add a cup of sugar. Then whisk in the lemon and egg mixture. When I did this, I was using a wooden spoon because the recipe from Linda Zeidrich I used said that to stir for 5 minutes in the double boiler, and that when it was ready I would be able to know it was thick enough by running my finger down the spoon — it creates a path when it’s ready. But after about 30 seconds, I could see little pockets forming that looked dangerously close to scrambled eggs (big no-no). I switched to a whisk and whisked the mixture briskly for a couple of minutes, then went back to using the wooden spoon. Sure enough, by the 5-minute mark, the curd was perfect.

My crowning achievement that weekend was a batch of tiny cheesecakes topped with homemade lemon curd. It was epic.

I am huge fan of Linda Zeidrich and her book “The Joy of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves – 200 Classic and Contemporary Recipes Showcasing the Fabulous Flavors of Fresh Fruits.” It has excellent recommendations for using fresh fruits and I highly recommend it. I bought it in the first place because of a post by Kate Payne (“The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking“) with orange-vanilla jelly, aka Creamsicle in a Jar. It so happened that my lovely friend (and fellow jammer) Eliza was at a party I attended, and she brought the Creamsicle jelly. Oh. My. Gawd. It was perfect. Not too sweet, but literally like an orange creamsicle.

At the same party, I came into possession of an enormous grocery bag full of fresh, organic lemons. Upon perusal of Linda’s book, I decided to try my hand at lemon jelly, as well as a variation on the lemon jelly with fresh rosemary. This makes a chicken sandwich POP.

Lemon-rosemary jelly

So, then, just to use up some of the bag of lemons, I also tried the same recipe and used mint leaves instead of fresh rosemary. Delish!

My next experiment wasn’t quite as good in my own opinion, but my dinner party guests seemed to love it. Instead of lemons, I used limes, and instead of adding fresh herbs at the end, I used jalapeno. I sliced the limes and let them sit in water overnight, then simmered the mixture with jalapenos and strained it through a jelly bag. After straining the juice I added the sugar and continued the boil until the mixture gelled. It was too spicy for me but it went fast when I topped cream cheese with it and used it as a spicy dip!